Courtesy of Flying Magazine.Observation balloon about to ascend.These balloons were stationed at intervals along the battle-fronts.
Courtesy of Flying Magazine.Observation balloon about to ascend.These balloons were stationed at intervals along the battle-fronts.
Courtesy of Flying Magazine.
Observation balloon about to ascend.
These balloons were stationed at intervals along the battle-fronts.
Owing to the great amount of material used, the immense cost, and the time necessary to construct a Zeppelin, under the urgent demands of war, the British built and developed a small rigid dirigible measuring between 200 and 250 feet in length, buoyed up by two balloonets, one front and back, and carrying a fuselage and one aeromotor, and propeller situated directly under the cigar-shaped airship. These vessels made about fifty miles an hour, carried two men, were fitted with wireless, and made excellent scouts over the North Sea and waters contiguous to allied territory, looking for submarines. These air-vessels were called Blimps.
The kite balloon was cigar-shaped and non-rigid, with only a basket suspended underneath. It was attached to a rope and was lifted by the gas and the wind which passed under the fins, which extended from the sides near the rear. It combined the principle of the free balloon and the man-lifting kites.
These balloons were used very extensively in the Great War for observation purposes. Suspended at the end of a cable attached to a donkey-engine or a windlass at an altitude of 3,000 feet, they afforded the best observation for artillery-fire, and by means of the telephone in the basket the observer could keep headquarters well informed of troop movements within a radius of many miles.
Naturally it was the special delight of the aeroplanesto dive down on these stationary balloons and by means of incendiary bullets to ignite the gas. It was dangerous work for the heavier-than-air machines, for all the way down the antiaircraft guns blazed away. It was also dangerous work for the observers in the imprisoned balloon, who often had to jump with their parachutes in order to escape.
Thus by 1918 man had devised an aircraft that could propel him through the air faster than the eagle, farther than the sea-gull, and soar aloft higher than the lark! No wonder he felt that no mechanical feat was impossible.